Getting work in Networking?

[Technical Ben]

My brother is thinking of getting a job in network management. Is there a course or somewhere that would be good to start? Or does anyone have any advice for generally getting tech/PC/admin work?

Any advice would be helpful, as I know little on the subject.

[pctech]

Cisco is probably the best place to start to learn about the kit.

While all manufacturers offer courses Cisco engineers contributed heavily to the development of the Requests For Comment (RFCs) that defined the protocols amd processes that underpin LANs and the Internet.


Depending on his existing knowledge he may want to start off with the CCENT http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/le2/le45/learning_certification_level_home.html but be warned that Cisco courses are a lot of work and have to be renewed about every three years.


Companies also seem to want the ITIL certification http://www.itil-officialsite.com/ and am looking into this myself at the minute.

There are lots of other courses too depending on if he wants to do server admin such as the MCSE and MCSA if you want to specialise in Windows servers http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/default.aspx. I'll admit I don't know much about Linux certifications offered by the likes of Redhat and I think Novell.

I quickly found myself that its not really possible to be a jack of all trades because the various areas require a lot of study.

[Technical Ben]

Thanks. I think he is looking at things such as College/Uni network administrator. Starting from the bottom.
I'll pass those links on. But I won't lie, I have no idea how to navigate those sites. It's all greek to me. (I was expecting "training: Time: Place: Cost: Software requirements" lists for the training. But I don't understand how Cisco have arrange that)

[Niall]

The bottom is normally a little below that. Two of my mates were forced to start in primary schools, the high schools. I think one eventually gave up due to losing his job, but the other went on to work for a private company, earning a fair chunk of cash. It's nice if it works out!

I was actually going to look into this, just before I had my accident years ago, as I was doing a multimedia degree, and found the networking side more interesting than anything else. It's VERY expensive to pay for a cisco course yourself though. Or at least it was, I haven't looked into it for several years now. Going back all those years, I seem to remember it would have cost me £1600, and I think that was per year.

[pctech]

All the courses are expensive.

Another one I had to do and pass when I started my current job (and to prove at least basic IT competency) was the European Computer Driving Licence or ECDL, this is validated by the British Computer Society in the UK http://www.ecdl.com/, http://www.bcs.org/category/14424

[Niall]

My sister just did that ECDL thing. That came out during the couple of months I was on JSA before getting my current job. We weren't allowed to do it at the time because there was some stupid technicality that stopped us completing it, so we had to do an alternate course. I didn't need to do it, but I was bored out of my mind having no job, so I put my name down for anything I could find

[pctech]

first thing boss inisisted on when I started waaaaaay back in 2002.